On Thursday this week I will hop on a bus with 50 or so other Coloradans for a one-day trip to Grand Island, Neb. And I’m going to be wearing my clergy collar.

What? To Grand Island and back in one day? Why would anyone do that?

You may have heard about Keystone XL. It’s a pipeline, proposed to be built by TransCanada, which would transport “tar sands oil” (diluted bitumen) from Alberta, Canada, to Houston, Texas, to be refined into fuel.

Tar sands “oil” is really more like asphalt than anything else. It is a thick, tar-like substance which saturates the sandy ground under parts of Alberta and other places. The extraction of this bitumen is a process similar to open-pit mining. First it involves clear-cutting thousands of acres of boreal forest, then digging up the tar sands with giant machines. In order to separate the bitumen from the sand, huge volumes of water are superheated, and the superheated steam is then forced through the sands to separate it. The water, needless to say, is terribly polluted by the process and then discharged back to the land. Altogether, this process leaves gigantic, hideous scars in the earth. The native forest ecology is gone forever. If you want to see pictures that will turn your stomach and chill your spine, just search the Internet for “images Alberta tar sands”. Then weep.

Where is your moral compass pointing? What are your social values? Hark will explore faith, morals, ethics and character at the intersection of religion ethics, culture, politics, media, science, education, economics and philosophy. At times this blog will alert readers to breaking news and trends. At times it will attempt to look more deeply into intriguing subjects. Hark means to listen attentively, and we will, as readers talk back to the news.